Document text
Still making gains Tiffany O'Donnell, former principal of Shady Cove and Elk Trail schools, recovers with her dog, Luna, from a motorcycle accident that happened on her way from one school to the other. [Mail Tribune / file photo] Sunday Apr 30, 2017 at 12:01 AM Sarah Lemon for the Mail Tribune @thewholedish After rehabilitating an ailing school, Principal Tiffany O’Donnell faced her own rehabilitation from a traumatic injury. Almost seven years later, she’s still improving on education and her own health. “I’m still recovering,” says the former Medford resident who was principal of Shady Cove and Elk Trail schools. “If you just apply yourself, like it’s your most important job every day, it pays off.” Defying the odds and physicians’ expectations, O’Donnell returned to work for Eagle Point School District less than a year after the Sept. 13, 2010, motorcycle crash that ruptured her bladder and nearly severed her right leg. O’Donnell credits rigorous physical therapy, horseback riding, yoga and meditation — along with community support — for her relatively rapid recovery. “It was very surprising and uplifting to find out how many people cared about me,” says O’Donnell, 51. Lifting up another “school in trouble,” O’Donnell was hired in 2013 as principal of Oakridge Elementary in Oakridge after a brief return as assistant principal of Eagle Point High School. O’Donnell’s efforts at Oakridge, she says, have helped to reduce discipline referrals by 60 percent this year alone. Like Shady Cove, which attained “model school” status the year after O’Donnell’s departure, Oakridge had been deemed a “focus school” for its high rate of poverty, rank in the bottom 15 percent and need for additional support. Challenges at Oakridge keep O’Donnell moving — literally. Carrying out her daily duties, the principal logs approximately 20,000 steps per day on her pedometer. With nearly each stride, O’Donnell concentrates on pointing her right foot outward. “I have to think how to walk every day.” Because she limps too badly after running, O’Donnell abandoned that exercise since her accident in favor of caring for her horses and bucking hay. Yoga, she says, continuously recalibrates her balance. And although she limited herself to the beginner slope, O’Donnell maneuvered a pair of downhill skis to accompany her students for an entire day last winter at Willamette Pass Resort. “I can’t believe that I was able to ski,” she says. “Everybody was very worried that I was going to lose my leg.” Fractured above and below the knee, O’Donnell’s right leg was scraped almost bare of flesh by the license plate of a pickup truck that smashed into her Suzuki motorcycle on Highway 62 near Trail. The pickup’s driver, 68-year-old Caroline Whitacre, of Prospect, was cited for making an illegal U-turn. The impact ruptured O’Donnell’s bladder, crushed her pelvis and pulverized her right foot, which was compressed so completely around her bike’s brake pedal that it kept her from tumbling onto the asphalt. “I didn’t have scrapes and scratches, and my head was OK,” says O’Donnell. “They were able with screws and bolts to put everything back together.” Six surgeries over the course of three weeks at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland put O’Donnell back on the road to recovery. Recuperating from a hospital bed in her Medford living room, she took her first steps a few months after surgery. Six months after the accident, O’Donnell was astride her horse. “I liked being able to work hard at physical therapy,” she says. “I just always want to do my very best and work as hard as possible.” By April 2011, O’Donnell was working part-time from home. By August that year, she was serving as part-time administrator for Upper Rogue Center for Educational Opportunities, Eagle Point School District's alternative school. But by the time doctors cleared O’Donnell to resume full-time work in 2012, the district had closed Elk Trail and reduced the Shady Cove principal’s workload to part-time. “I still care very much about the people there,” says O’Donnell, adding that she stays in contact with many members of the staff and former students. “Her determination to create a caring, safe atmosphere at school was evident,” says David Sweem, science teacher at Shady Cove Middle School. “That determination and grit was drawn upon deeply when she was involved in her accident.” Although there were “difficult and dark” moments, when she felt like she lost everything, says O’Donnell, each day of her recovery “got a little bit better.” That outlook still defines O’Donnell, both personally and professionally. “Seven years later, (I’m) still making gains.” — Reach freelance writer Sarah Lemon at [email protected].